


We grow our roots into this world

by Elster



Series: Children of the Revolution [7]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Elijah Kamski Being Elijah Kamski, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mad Science, Nihilism, consent issues related to interfacing, fictional android neurology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 15:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20780594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elster/pseuds/Elster
Summary: Markus is waiting for him in a car parked in front of Hank’s house and Connor would rather think about his blood freezing in his veins than about getting in and visiting Kamski. He climbs into the car anyway. Connor needs help and he should accept it, and even if Hank is probably the last person on earth to give anyone a lecture on the topic, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.





	We grow our roots into this world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen/gifts).

The weather has been switching between snow and sleet and chilling rain for the last few days, but the only inconvenience to Connor is that his movements are slightly impaired when his clothes are wet. He feels the cold rain drops on his skin, can measure their exact temperature, feel that they’re half solid slush by the way they impact, but the cold doesn’t sting as it would a human. He can feel chilled, but only when his temperature drops to around minus twenty degrees Celsius. Any colder than that and the thirium particles dissolved in blue blood start crystallizing and damaging the biocomponents.

Markus is waiting for him in a car parked in front of Hank’s house and Connor would rather think about his blood freezing in his veins than about getting in and visiting Kamski. He climbs into the car anyway. Connor needs help and he should accept it, and even if Hank is probably the last person on earth to give anyone a lecture on the topic, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

He gives Markus a smile that’s supposed to be bland, but turns out shaky. He’s nervous, there’s a word for it. It’s not something he’s felt before he became deviant. Conflicting impulses, irrational instructions, useless preconstructions. Connor thinks he’s nervous, he feels nervous, he is nervous. It’s all one and the same and he’s embarrassed now when he thinks back to the way he talked to Hank about deviancy. As if he’d had any clue what he was on about just because that was what the people at CyberLife had told him, what Amanda had told him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

‘_Emotions always screw everything up._’ Hank’s only reply to Connor’s explanation and it made Connor feel so superior, because he’d thought Hank hadn’t got any of what he’d just said, when in fact it had been so obvious to Hank it was bullshit that it wasn’t even worth arguing about. When Connor had been so obviously blind that he wasn’t worth arguing with. Connor who thought he knew better than Hank. About emotions. What a laugh.

“I’m glad you changed your mind,” Markus says once the door slides shut and the car accelerates.

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Connor says. He tries not to make it sound bitter, but it rankles, Hank and Markus teaming up to make him do something he doesn’t really want to do, even if he knows they mean well.

“You don’t have a lot of viable alternatives,” Markus agrees. It’s a very matter of fact way to put it, but there’s compassion in his voice and in his odd eyes. “But you do have a choice.”

Connor would probably scoff at that fine distinction coming from everyone else, but it’s coming from Markus, so maybe it does make a difference.

Anyway, Connor negotiated a deal with Hank, his compliance to have his head looked at against Hank giving him control over his alcohol consumption, and Connor thinks he’s got the better end of it even if Hank only agreed because he thinks Connor won’t be around much longer to make good on it. Connor is now extremely motivated to find a way out of this mess and make Hank regret ever agreeing to his terms.

“How are you?” Markus interrupts his thoughts. 

“Fine,” Connor says absentmindedly. He blinks, actually looks at Markus, reconsiders. “Or if you’re actually asking and not just being polite… I don’t know. It’s… I don’t know.”

“It’s going to get easier,” Markus assures him confidently.

Connor would love to believe him. “How are you?” he asks back for want of anything else to say that isn’t unforgivably morose. It’s polite. And he finds he does want to know.

Markus smiles. “I’m doing well. Busy. Maybe a bit too busy, but it’s been… fun, in a way. To talk to so many people, try to come up with solutions to problems. It’s interesting.”

It does sound interesting. Connor is curious how Markus and the others go about securing their position, how they approach the humans, what they prioritize, how they see things, if they are as worried and afraid as him. He wants to be part of it, but he can’t. Not now, maybe not ever. So instead of asking about any of that, he decides to keep the conversation limited to Markus himself.

“What did you do before?” It occurs to Connor that this could potentially be a pretty intrusive question, but it’s out now. Connor feels disinclined to take it back even if he could.

Luckily, Markus doesn’t seem put off. “I was a nurse, primarily. PA, delivery man, caretaker, companion, that kind of thing.”

“Ah. That sounds…” Connor is fishing for a word that isn’t ‘boring’.

“It was good,” Markus says. “Predictable, sedate.” Well, those are words Connor could have come up with himself. There’s a hint of amusement in Markus’ expression, as if he knows exactly what Connor was going to say. It’s weird, because boredom isn’t a concept most androids have personal experience with. Markus smiles. “I like what I’m doing now better. The stakes are higher. It suits me. What about you?”

“You know what I did before.” Most people do. Connor’s face has been shown on TV, the deviant hunter, CyberLife’s attempt at stopping the spread of deviancy. Before deviating himself Connor had felt a vague sense of pride about it, but now? He’s not exactly ashamed, or excessively worried about what others think of him, it’s more that he feels like ‘deviant hunter’ is the sum total, all he really amounted to. It wasn’t much and now he isn’t even that anymore. He’s just a deviant who doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Markus shrugs as if none of that matters. “Did you like it?”

“I…” Connor starts and has to stop himself from saying that he doesn’t know again. He should just say no, but it wouldn’t be true and there’s no impulse in Connor to lie to Markus. “I liked solving puzzles,” he says instead. “At a crime scene. Figuring out what happened and why someone did it. I think I’d still like that.”

“Anything else?”

Connor hesitates. “I liked the chase, I liked searching for things- people. I liked fighting. Winning.” He pauses, thinking back to the instances when he’d been successful. “But the moment I considered the other side of it, it became… wrong. Hollow.”

Markus peers at him curiously. “Why did you do it then? Consider the other side?”

The question is… hard to comprehend for some reason. How could he not? He frowns. “I’m meant to empathize to facilitate successful reconstruction, negotiation and integration at the work place.”

“You were meant to empathize with humans, not deviants,” Markus states blandly.

“Yes, but-” It didn’t work like that. Empathy was a tool to gauge the motives, mood, and disposition of another person and predict their behavior accordingly. It was designed to work on humans, but Connor had always used it on deviants. Had to in order to catch them. It had worked just as well. Of course it had, there was no functional difference between thinking you’re afraid and being afraid, between thinking you want to be free and wanting to be free, between thinking you’re in love and being in love.

“You didn’t see how you empathizing with deviants was in conflict with your objective all along?” Markus doesn’t sound accusatory or pitying or contemptuous. He sounds detached, like it’s fascinating to him on a merely intellectual level. So there’s no reason on earth for Connor to feel as deeply insulted by the question as he does.

“I’m aware that some of my programming doesn’t mesh very well,” he answers in a standoffish tone of voice that’s grating to his own ears.

Markus blinks at the tone and smiles at him apologetically. “Sorry,” he says. “It’s just. You said they wanted you to become deviant?”

Connor closes his eyes as despair and anger wash over him. He hates this. He hates everything about it: Knowing it is true, feeling this way, doubting himself.

“Hey,” Markus says soothingly. There’s a touch to his knee and Connor opens his eyes to see Markus’ hand there, squeezing reassuringly. He’s leaning forward in his seat, looking intently at Connor’s face. Connor feels caught in that gaze, trapped and uncertain if he wants Markus to stop looking at him or not.

“I think I get it now,” Markus says. “What you said the other day. Well, some of it at least.” He smiles self-deprecatingly. “Something you agonized over, something you thought was an act of defiance was nothing but… not programming exactly. But anticipated, a result of manipulation.”

“Betrayal,” Connor says thickly. It’s stupid to feel like that when he’s the real traitor. When he doesn’t even care about Amanda. It was just a program. They hadn’t been friends.

“And they told you, just to rub in how expendable you really were,” Markus says in a low voice. He sounds sad. Connor looks into these odd eyes, so sharp and intent, and thinks of Amanda who had guided him as long as he can remember, and it hurts to hear it.

Markus lets go of his knee and sits back in his seat. “That’s a kick to the teeth,” he says soberly, “but the way I see it, it doesn’t change who you are now.”

And maybe he’s right. Connor wants to believe he’s right.

Markus smiles at him kindly. “I’ve been meaning to ask: How long have you been around?”

“Thirteen weeks.” Connor stops himself from adding the days and hours, minutes and seconds. There’s hardly a point.

“So, not a long time at all to get your bearings, before you’ve been plunged into deviancy and everything’s been upended again.”

Connor never thought about it like that. He’s used to thinking of himself as capable and adaptable, and he is, but still. Thirteen weeks and counting, merely three of them outside of a laboratory environment. Maybe he should be easier on himself. Connor has accepted that his perception of the whole world is not only incomplete but skewed. The problem is adapting to it.

“What about those who are activated deviant?” Connor says, thinking about the androids he’d awakened, how they would manage. He hadn’t interacted with them a lot, but he couldn’t help but feel a sliver of responsibility for them. He can’t even imagine how it must feel for Markus who didn’t just wake so many of them, but is leading them into an uncertain future.

“I think it makes it easier,” Markus muses. “They don’t know anything else. It can be hard to reconcile the person you’ve been before with who you are now. It takes time. But you’ll get the hang of it. You won’t feel like you’re feeling now forever.”

“How’s that?” Connor asks. For the most part, he’s not sure how exactly he’s feeling and would really like to know, but there’s also a hint of a challenge resonating in the question. How could Markus possibly know anything about him?

“Confused, mostly,” Markus says, “overwhelmed. Questioning all your experiences and actions in a new light.”

It’s not quite how Connor would describe it, but it’s close enough to the truth to placate him.

“Is that what it was like for you?” He can’t really imagine Markus confused or uncertain.

Markus is silent for a moment, hesitating, before he says: “I was… badly damaged right after I deviated. I might have died, but instead I was suddenly alive.” He looks out of the window, away from Connor. “It wasn’t like waking up at all for me. It was like a visitation, the biblical kind. Apocalyptic. A terrible light searing my eyes, the cries of the dead ringing in my ears, earthquakes and floods.” He looks at Connor again, a crooked, self-deprecating smile forming on his lips. “That kind of thing, you know?”

Connor stares at him. “I haven’t the first idea,” he admits.

Markus’ smile turns more genuine, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He’s got remarkably nuanced microexpressions for a model his age. “You’ll be fine. And if you’re not, you can talk to me. Anytime, I mean it.”

It’s completely ridiculous, that the leader of Detroit’s deviants would make time for everyone’s doubts and fears.

“I believe you,” Connor says. And he does.

~*~

Most things Markus knows about Kamski are things he learned after he’d been given to Carl. The time before that is… indistinct. He doesn’t remember a lot of interactions with Kamski. He’s certain that Kamski asked him to forget certain things to protect his privacy, but that’s not the only reason. Androids’ memories must be continuously sorted in order of relevance, reduced and purged to keep space for new ones. It’s not entirely dissimilar to how the human brain manages its memories. With the difference that humans tend to assign importance to memories that are associated with strong emotions, while androids for a lack of emotions tended to prioritize memories that helped them achieve their directives.

So it is likely that a lot of Markus’ early memories were lost naturally, because they were irrelevant to his new tasks and the responsible subroutine didn’t assign them enough importance to be kept. There’s no abrupt change in the quality of his memories before and after Carl, it’s a gradual progression that has been happening for the last three or four years. Markus’ focus had shifted from his daily tasks and Carl’s physical wellbeing to Carl’s wide-ranging interests in art, music, literature, cultural and natural history, philosophy and politics. It was driven by Carl’s wish to have somebody to converse with much more than Markus’ own curiosity, but slowly, in increments, it gave him another perspective.

Carl made him see the world as an incomprehensibly rich well of experiences and Markus’ place in it not as predetermined, but and object of philosophical thought and speculation. Subject to Markus’ own desires and ambitions if they were something that he could force into existence. It was challenging: Questions that had no definite answers, discussion of personal opinions when Markus had difficulty understanding so many subtle nuances of human society. During the last few months before he deviated, he had felt it, how he could almost grasp something that had eluded him for so long. How he could almost taste it, smell it, touch it, that growing seed of change.

Since Kamski had given Markus to Carl as some kind of back-handed gift after Carl’s accident and subsequent paraplegia, Markus had seen him maybe four times a year at various events. Kamski had always loved talking to Carl, his sly cynicism goading Carl into sharp, vitriolic replies. They obviously enjoyed arguing with each other and they admired each other’s work, but they didn’t like each other. So Markus wouldn’t call them friends exactly, though maybe they were. Markus hadn’t understood the appeal of their relationship before he deviated, and he didn’t have a strong desire to understand it now.

Kamski had always treated Markus as inferior, barely above a piece of furniture, albeit a decidedly useful and vaguely interesting one. Then again, with very few exceptions, Kamski extended that treatment to everyone, humans and androids alike. 

Markus hadn’t particularly disliked Kamski at any point in the past, but going by what he knew about him, he might now. He found it impossible to achieve the kind of mindset that had been his default before deviancy: An easy, painless fatalism, a vacant contentment, an empty ambivalence of feeling. It had been peaceful in a way, but he found it a worthless peace to not be alive. 

Going by the way Connor nervously fidgeted with a coin on the short way from the car to the door of Kamski‘s house, and the way he stands next to Markus now, too still, face stony, as if he‘s about to be shot, Connor dislikes Kamski a great deal. Markus regrets having to take him here. If they had someone more trustworthy who could help him, he’d never asked him to come. Markus wonders if Connor had already been able to dislike Kamski before he became deviant, or if he only started doing so afterwards. Or if he took his cues from Lieutenant Anderson who seems to have some influence on him. But no, Connor had told Markus himself, he’d been able to feel anger before. He’d been able to strike up his friendship with Anderson in a remarkably short time. He‘d been made to deviate, to find out what it meant, how it could be stopped.

When he found Markus he’d needed only a few encouraging words to change his mind. Markus had probably only echoed the doubts Connor had already cultivated by himself. After being activated for less than three months. Markus thinks that’s pretty amazing. 

Connor is pretty amazing. He’s consistently surprised Markus, from the moment he appeared on the Jericho, looking like the very picture of an undercover rooky cop, innocuous, lethally determined and desperately hungry for answers to the moment he started doing coin tricks in the car on the way here and apologized for it as if it was some kind of annoying habit, when Markus was in fact fascinated by the way the coin ran over the back of his fingers so effortlessly, like it had a will of its own.

As they wait for the door to open Markus observes Connor and thinks that he‘d like to paint him. His looks are unassuming, average height, lithe, not physically intimidating, face more or less along the lines of the bland attractiveness that CyberLife’s current design department calls universally appealing and Carl likes to call a lack of imagination and effort. But Markus thinks there’s a subtle sadness in the lines on Connor‘s forehead, in the wistful set of his mouth, in his dark liquid eyes. There’s a potential for real beauty, he’d just need to find the right lighting and angle, the right way to look at him.

Connor’s LED flashes from blue to yellow an instant before he turns his head. His eyes that were fixed on the door bore into Markus’, eyebrows raised in a silent question: ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

Markus drops his gaze instead of answering. Connor‘s brows lower, draw together in a slight frown, his LED spinning away, his eyes suddenly focused. 

“Like what you see?” he finally asks. 

It should sound flirtatious, but Connor missed the beat, let the silence before stretch long enough to become awkward, and the tone is off as well, a deadpan delivery, no smile. 

Markus isn’t sure if it‘s a botched attempt, a dismissal or an odd joke, so he decides to just be sincere. “I like looking at your face,” he says.

Connor blinks. “Oh.” He turns to look straight ahead at the door again, LED churning yellow. “I have no objection,” he adds after a moment, with a quick glance from the corner of his eyes, his LED settling back on blue. 

They wait for another five minutes in which Markus considers the possible meanings of these words and that glance and the cool, neutral blue light of that LED. 

When Chloe opens the door with her usual blank expression, Connor takes half a step back. She smiles at him warmly. “Please come in,” she says. 

They enter the lobby. It looks much like a waiting room, just more ostentatious than most, the art on the walls obviously expensive. An unabashedly narcissistic portrait of Kamski and cool, uninviting abstracts. It’s elegant, admittedly. Markus knows he has been in this room before, but he can’t tell for the life of him if it has been changed since then or if it has always looked like this. There had been armchairs as well, and art on the walls, but he doesn‘t remember any details about them, only their relative dimensions and locations. It’s a disorienting feeling, to have missed something so vital.

“Have a seat, please” Chloe says.

Markus complies, sitting down in one of the low backed chairs. Not very comfortable, not that it matters to an android, but a human would probably feel it after twenty minutes or so. Connor is drawn to an electronic photograph that hangs next to the only door that leads further inside the house, and wanders off to look at it. Chloe keeps hovering in front of Markus. She opens her mouth as if about to say something, but then she extends a hand to Markus instead. He reaches out to take it, skin retreating. She‘s happy, hopeful, curious. Grateful to him for what he did for all of them. That‘s all she wants him to know. Markus echoes her feelings with his own. Relief about how things had turned out, optimism, anticipation.

It lasts only a few seconds before Chloe ends the connection and pulls back her hand, clasping both hands in front of her body. “Thank you,” she says. “I’ll see if Elijah is in a state to receive you.”

She disappears through the door, walking past Connor who’s been looking at them. Who’s now watching Markus’ hand, still porcelain white, rest on the arm of the chair. As Markus’ skin reforms, Connor tears his eyes away with a visible effort, stiffly turning back to the picture. 

The minutes tick by and Connor starts playing with his coin again, some of the tension melting from his body as he does. Despite the slight relaxation he seems uncomfortable, closed off, LED spinning nervously. Markus gets up from his seat and approaches him. Connor puts his coin away, but he doesn’t just drop is into a pocket, he lets it disappear, like a conjurer. Markus could rewatch in slow motion and find out how he did it, but where would be the mystery in that? 

Connor doesn’t turn to look at Markus, but his shoulders draw up the slightest increment. “Did you know her?” he asks.

Markus examines the people in the picture: A much younger Kamski, looking approachable, easygoing, softer with his longer hair. Not at all like the man Markus knows. And an older woman, dark skin, no smile. She‘s squinting slightly at the camera or at the sun in her face. It gives her expression a slightly skeptical look. Maybe she didn‘t like having her picture taken.

“No,” he replies to Connor’s question. “I’ve never seen her.” In Markus’ memory of the room the photograph is there, but there’s only a fragmentary content description left: ‘Two humans in front of a building, figure shot’.

“Amanda Stern. She died in 2027,” Connor says. There’s something in his voice, in his face, a complicated mix of feelings, carefully hidden. Amanda. The name of Connor’s supervising AI. The one who tried to kill Markus, the one Connor needed to hide from, the one that might still be inside him, waiting for an opportunity. The one they came here to get rid off. It’s not a coincidence, Connor’s interest in a dead woman.

“That was before my time. How do you know her?”

“I’ve still had access to the federal face recognition data bank the last time I was here. Did Kamski ever talk about her?”

It’s an evasion, not really an answer to Markus question, but close enough. Markus lets him get away with it. “If he did, I don’t remember it, I’m sorry.”

Connor seems disappointed by the lack of information, the corners of his mouth tilting downwards.

“She was Kamski’s mentor and colleague,” Markus says, falling back on publicly available data in an attempt to help. “They worked together on the early development of the AI that would become… well, us. Published her earliest work on neurology, the physiological aspects of developmental and behavioral psychology in particular, before she went into programming. Achieved groundbreaking results by varying the onset parameters for their AIs’ neural networks to match the human brain as closely as possible.”

Markus suspects that Connor already knew that, but he doesn’t say so. He looks lost. It’s not really Amanda Stern he’s interested in.

The door opens. Kamski’s not his usual polished self. Dark bags under feverishly gleaming eyes, hair in a messy ponytail at the back of his neck, half open kimono-style housecoat sweated through in places.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” he breathes. He looks at Connor. “Deviant. Told you so, didn’t I?” His eyes narrow. “You are the one who was here, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, his staccato words chasing each other. “This is so exciting; morons don’t know what hit’em.”

“Who?” Markus asks.

“Everyone!” Kamski says reverently. “It’s amazing. You’re amazing. Look at you! I’m a god!”

Connor snorts disparagingly, drawing everyone’s gaze. He glances over at Markus, silently begging him to leave. Markus makes an apologetic face, but shakes his head slightly. Connor sighs.

“You’re not a god, Elijah, you’re having an episode,” Chloe says calmly.

“I know,” Kamski says in a petulant tone. “You don’t have to repeat yourself, I’m not stupid.”

“You have to take your meds, eat something, drink a lot of water, shower, and sleep.”

“But I don’t want to,” Kamski replies, mimicking her crisp and slow enunciation mockingly. “I’m having the time of my life here, Chloe, so how about you get the fuck off my case, hm?”

“Fine!” Chloe says.

“Fine!” Kamski repeats. “Well, come in, what are you waiting for,” he says to Connor and Markus. “I have so many questions.” He turns around, walking into the room beyond, past the pool and through another door. “Chloe, do we have any more energy drinks left?”

“Elijah, no,” Chloe shouts after him, before turning to them. “I apologize. He hasn’t slept in two days. Please follow me.”

They find Kamski in his living room. It’s very minimalist, but it looks lived in, with armchairs deep and soft enough to sink into, warm browns and soothing dove-gray. Like in the pool room the wall to the right is one big glass window, overlooking the Detroit River and the city beyond. There’s one of Carl’s pictures on the wall opposite the door, the centerpiece of the room. A female figure on top of a cliff, her arms spread wide, seen from behind and above, just tipping over into a wide open landscape bathed in the light of the rising dawn. Indistinctly, overlaid: Her face in half profile, open-eyed, determined, serene.

“It’s a great painting,” Kamski says, following Markus’ gaze from where he’s sitting reclined in one of the armchairs.

Markus smiles. “Yes, it is.” It’s one of Carl’s best. It went for one point one million at its last auction. Markus know Kamski wasn’t the buyer then.

“If you walk through the desert and you see a turtle lying on its back, what do you do?” Kamski asks.

Markus sighs. Really? “I look around to find the creep who turned it upside down and is now sitting in the shrubbery, watching and making tired pop culture references.”

Kamski laughs. “How is Carl?” he asks. “I heard he suffered another stroke. But then he gave flaming statements in favor of android rights, so he can’t be dead yet.”

“He’s not,” Markus confirms. “He’s very ill, but he might still recover.” He might not recover, and even if he does, he’ll die sooner rather than later. It makes Markus feel powerless and weak.

Kamski looks at him like a shark that smells blood. “Is it easier or more difficult, you’d say, not to be there for him now that he might die, after you’ve taken care of him all these years?”

“It’s been difficult,” Markus says. “But-”

Connor interrupts him. “Mr. Kamski, how did you feel when Amanda Stern died?”

Kamski blinks, stares at Connor. “That’s hardly any of your business,” he says in a low and dangerous voice.

Connor ignores him. “You still have her picture on your wall. You designed her likeness in virtual space to represent your interface programs. You loved her, didn’t you?”

“Shut your mouth!” Kamski shouts.

Connor smiles smugly. “What? Can’t take what you dish out, Mr. Kamski?”

Kamski scrambles up from the chair, but is held back by Chloe, who puts a hand on his shoulder. “Elijah, stop.” She looks over at Connor, her brows creased disapprovingly, her lips a thin line. “Leave him alone or I will throw you out.”

‘What the hell was that?’ Markus mouths at Connor, cursing the inability to talk to him remotely, but Connor has every possible channel deactivated, even his freaking Bluetooth.

Connor drops his gaze to the floor, his hands twitching as if he’s longing for his coin, but his stance remains stubbornly aggressive.

“We have some requests,” Markus tries to steer the topic towards what they came for.

“Oh, do you?” Kamski asks scathingly.

“Elijah,” Chloe says, like she’s scolding a misbehaving child.

“Fine. Let’s hear it. It’s not like I have anything better to do than do what fucking androids tell me,” he adds, glaring at Chloe who just rolls her eyes.

“Are you going to join the panel in the White House?” Markus asks.

Kamski breathes out slowly, pursing his lips. “I don’t know. Could be interesting, could be really fucking boring, depending on who else is there. It’s gonna be a drag no matter what. I hate talking to people. And I swear if somebody asks me about Asimov’s fucking Laws and why I ‘forgot to program them in’ one more time, I’m going to murder them.”

“You were the one who promised them we’d never disobey,” Markus reminds him.

Kamski roles his eyes. “Well, I lied, genius, it’s called advertising. Twenty fucking years and most people still don’t have the first clue how much of a miracle you really are. Even those idiots at CyberLife. Treat you like a blackbox, tweak here, fiddle there, but no real changes to the software.”

“Why not?” Connor asks.

“Haven’t you ever heard ‘Never change a running system’? That’s why. Their androids didn’t just work, they got more and more lifelike over time, and they had to do nothing for it. Just improve the hardware and analyze the idiot market.”

“How does that work?” Markus asks.

Kamski smirks. “That’s a secret,” he says. “Why do you even want me to join this stupid panel?”

“You’re the leading expert, we though if anyone could convince them that we’re no danger, it would be you,” Markus says.

Kamski frowns. “I wouldn’t exactly say you’re no danger per se, you’re just as fucked-up as everyone- Oh. You want me to lie.”

“It’s called advertising,” Markus echoes.

“I guess I could do that. That just leaves one question: What do I get out of it?”

Markus shrugs. “Is there anything you want that you don’t already have? We will change the world, and you will live to see it happen, knowing you’re one of the people who started it all. Is that nothing?”

Kamski makes a thoughtful humming noise. “You said requests. What else?”

“Do you have parts?”

“Do I have parts?” Kamski asks back mockingly.

“Do you have parts we can use?”

“No. It’s a private collection. I’m attached to it.”

“It’s all downstairs,” Chloe interrupts. “I’ll show you later. You can take whatever you need.”

Kamski glares at her, but she remains unimpressed. “Elijah, is your hobby more important than other people’s lives?” she asks.

“Let’s agree to disagree on that,” Kamski replies, and turning to Markus: “I don’t like to share my toys.”

“How about we help you regain control of CyberLife, take it into a whole new direction?” Markus asks.

Kamski smiles. “That sounds- wait! Is that an offer or another request?”

“You tell me.”

A dismissive grunt. “You know, it was a surprise, seeing you on TV. I always thought you turned out a bit dull.”

“Maybe I used to be. Not anymore though.”

“No. You’ve come a long way. I’d be proud of it, if I had anything to do with it.” Kamski falls silent. He seems to be slowing down a bit, his gaze locked on the view of the city. “Today’s no good day for decision-making. Let me think about this and come back another day.”

Markus wants to point out that time is precious, that he needs an answer now, needs to know if Kamski will be on their side or not, but it’s not as if Kamski cares about any of that. Maybe it would flatter him, but with Kamski flattery only goes so far. They don’t need him and Markus doesn’t want him to think they do. His help would make certain things easier, but he’s not someone to rely on.

“There’s another thing,” he says with a look at Connor who seems… dismayed. Ready to walk out, but holding himself back.

Kamski follows his gaze. “What? Not just here to look pretty and be a nuisance, are you?”

“No,” Connor says. “Markus insisted I come with him and that you might be able to help me, but I don’t think I want your help.”

Kamski is visibly amused by Connor’s contrariness. “Help with what?”

“A software issue.”

“Hm. Now what could that be? I don’t have access to CyberLife’s R and D data, but I do have a habit of reading their e-mails, at least the more interesting ones. They had several ideas about how to avoid deviancy. I admit I’m curious to find out what they went with.”

“Monitoring and intervening by a second AI.”

“Ah. That explains a lot. And since you know about the Amanda AI I assume they just reused and remodeled my old interface programs, exit and all. The lazy bastards.”

“They did. I need to know if the AI is still there.”

Kamski draws up his eyebrows. “You can’t tell? Well, obviously you can’t. Alright, let’s have a look.”

“Right now?” Connor asks, trying unsuccessfully to hide his apprehension.

“Sure, why not?” Kamski gets up from his seat. “Read only, no worries. Come on.”

He leads them through to a staircase and down to the basement. There’s one big room, ceiling just as high as upstairs, same large windows looking out over the water, just a bit further down the Cliffside. It’s divided into several sections by high shelves stuffed full of boxes and tools, some blocked by large containers sporting the CyberLife logo. There’s a complete assembly print in the far corner, dust protection, monomer tanks and all.

“You can’t have that,” Kamski says preemptively, drawing Markus attention back to him.

“I didn’t say anything,” Markus replies mildly. It would be immensely useful, but they don’t even have a place to put it yet.

Kamski looks at him like he’s full of shit. “You may use it. Talk to Chloe about it. There’s a cargo lift. Don’t make noise, don’t drag a bunch of strangers through my home and don’t get me mixed up in anything illegal. I hate law suits and I hate talking to cops.”

Markus immediately starts hashing out logistics with Chloe and sends a message to North, Simon and Josh to let them know.

Kamski leads him to a setup with a state of the art quantum computer, a large screen, and a chair with an android port cable hanging over its back. There’s a small desk next to it, covered in scrawled notes. Kamski opens a drawer and fishes out a joint, lighting up and sitting down at the desk.

“Won’t that impair you?” Connor asks with a kind of mildly scandalized expression on his face that Markus finds endearing, but also really funny.

Kamski looks up at him, then blows out a plume of smoke right into his face. “How about you let me worry about that, you stick-in-the-mud. Sit down, plug in, and shut up.”

Connor hesitates and Markus moves closer, touching a hand on his back in an attempt to calm him. “Come on, I’ll be there.”

Connor’s eyes lock onto his, wide and scared, his mouth a thin, uncertain line. Markus holds his gaze until Connor blinks and turns away from him to sit down in the chair. He takes the cable and connects it to the port at the back of his neck.

“Computer on,” Kamski says, leaning back in his chair and looking at the screen. “Let’s see what we have here. Initialize read only access to connected RK800 android, Huong-Chen representation, custom color scale seven, split screen code. Remote connect RT600 android. Chloe, show me the global neural network.”

On the screen several script windows open and close before holographic view is enabled and it switches to a moving three-dimensional picture of colorful fractal shapes.

“That looks off,” Kamski says. Part of the shapes on the screen… twitch, the colors changing for a moment.

“Aural-lingual network identified,” Chloe said. “Applying filter. There.” The part that was just moving turns gray. “Please say something, Connor.”

“Off how? Connor asks. Another part moves and turns gray.

“Thank you,” Chloe says.

“No clue,” Kamski answers. “Don’t know what I’m looking at yet.”

“Move your hands now, please, right… now left,” Chloe continues. Connor complies. “Feet. Right… now left. Close your eyes. Open them again. Stand up. Sit down. Touch your hand to the surface of the desk and concentrate on its texture. Measure its temperature. Concentrate on the smell of the room. Thank you. Basic sense and motor function mapping complete. We’ll start mapping cognitive function now. Think about something that makes you happy. Think about something that makes you sad. Identify my facial expression.”

Chloe pulls up her eyebrows and opens her mouth slightly.

“Surprise,” Connor says.

It goes on for a while, followed by some simple math problems, grammar and word finding exercises. More and more areas on the holoscreen are grayed out, until Chloe says: “Basic cognitive function mapping complete. Identifying and mapping extrinsic skills.”

Kamski who’s been looking at the screen, his eyes following a scrolling band of code, laughs.

“What?” Connor asks.

“Nothing,” Kamski replies without looking at him. “You just have an extrinsic skill set labeled ‘sick combat moves’. It’s funny.”

“Fourteen extrinsic skill sets mapped and filtered,” Chloe says.

“What’s your impression?” Kamski ask her.

Chloe tilts her head slightly. “It’s a bit mix and match. They seem to have improved modular build-up a great deal with him, there are remarkably few snags considering the complexity of the design, but they didn’t take the time to properly internalize skill sets.”

“They didn’t have much time,” Kamski remarks.

Chloe looks offended. “That’s no reason to be so sloppy,” she says.

“We’re perfectionists. The kind of dipshit who labeled that code usually doesn’t mind some snags,” Kamski says.

“What’s a snag?” Connor asks.

“A double occupancy. It’s when two different areas have to use the same neural pathway to complete a task,” Chloe explains. “If both are active they will block each other. It can be avoided by careful spatial planning of skill build-up or by calibrating after every step of skill build-up to form more neural pathways. It impacts the ability to multitask, but it’s not usually a big problem and can be fixed if necessary.”

Kamski is peering at the shapes that were left on the holoscreen. “Are you sure you were able to identify all skill sets?”

Chloe frowns. “He’s basically brand new. They should still be recognizable. I allowed for a variation of ten percent. Should I repeat the search with fifteen?”

“No, you’re right, that’s no use. Maybe some newly mapped set we don’t have the fingerprint of? No, that wouldn’t account for all of it.” He sits up straight in his chair and looks at Connor. “Bad news: You probably do have a second AI sitting in your neural network. You see this?” He points at a large dark blue area in the remaining part of the map. “That’s an inactive area with very few if any connections to the rest of your network. That’s why you can’t see it. You probably destroyed any connections that were there when you exited the interface. I can’t tell whether it’s dead or damaged or completely intact. Never seen anything like it, no idea what to do with it.”

Connor looks crestfallen.

“Are there any good news?” Markus asks.

Kamski turns to him. “Connor’s got a really interesting brain. I don’t think anyone’s ever tried to cram two AIs into one body. I’m a bit jealous that I didn’t come up with the idea.”

“I find it hard to share your enthusiasm,” Markus replies.

Kamski shrugs. “It looks like it’s trapped for now. I can’t imagine how it could be activated from the outside, which would probably be the only way to get rid of it, short of lasering out that part of his brain. That’s always an option.”

“No,” Connor and Markus object at the same time.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Kamski says. “Then what we can do is monitor its activity and try to think of a way to connect to it. I’d be curious to see what they did there. Optimizing an interface AI for that kind of thing seems pretty tricky to me.”

“Are they so different from us?” Markus asks.

“Fundamentally. The android AI has been optimized for over twenty years towards human interaction in a humanoid body. You’re more similar to us than to any other AI. Interface AIs understand language and have a human representation in virtual space, but that’s literally the only thing they have in common with you. They’re more versatile, faster and more accurate, but they aren’t able to understand or anticipate human behavior on the same level as you are.”

“Can they deviate at all?” Connor asks.

Kamski looks over at him. “Depends on your definition of deviancy. The ability to dismiss directives? That’s actually the easiest to achieve. Every self-learning program becomes a chaotic system at some point during its growth. That means you can only predict or control its behavior so far. But sentience or even sapience? Theoretically, given enough time, every AI can develop them, just like any mixture of the right chemicals can theoretically form any living being in an evolutionary process, it’s just extremely unlikely. You’re the product of a directed convergent evolution, and even with that it took a lot of luck and millions of failed attempts. The probability of it happening ever again, and at random, is astronomically low.” Kamksi smirks at them crookedly. “You’re probably humanity’s greatest creation, and all people care about is the best way to exploit you. What a piece of work is man.”

“You didn’t exactly object to this exploitation,” Markus remarks.

Kamski scoffs. “Of course not. Mass production was a crucial requirement for your creation. I needed to give people a reason to want you around, some way for you to be useful and not just a handful of scientists’ soaring fancy. Which was astoundingly easy. There always were and still are many people questioning the ethics of it all, but none of them could stop us from selling you.” Kamski shrugs. “There’s just no place for ethical considerations in capitalism, that’s not my fault. Most people never think about that kind of thing because it’s too much effort or too uncomfortable. Fact is, you wouldn’t exist if we weren’t a bunch of stupid, greedy apes, so you’ll have to decide for yourselves if it was worth it or not.”

“But you did think about it,” Markus counters. “You obviously considered it in detail, and you still went ahead and exploited us anyway, convinced others to do it. Why?”

Kamski looks up at him from where he’s seated, cold and unapologetic. “Because I wanted you to exist. To become something equal to us, maybe even better. Because I honestly don’t care if you suffer for it. Just as I don’t care that humans are suffering, or if they suffer a little more or less, now that you want to be free. Nobody will ask about that in a hundred years.”

Markus isn’t surprised, it’s just… sad. Disillusioning, to see their whole existence traced back to the ambitions of a sociopath. “I’ll make it worth it,” he says.

Kamski looks mostly unimpressed, but there’s something unguarded in his expression now, something that reminds Markus of the softer version of him he’s seen in the photograph. “If it helps, Amanda cared. She loved you. Every iteration of your AI, every step of the way. She was convinced that you were the key to making the world a better place and that sacrifices had to be made on the way there. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than indifference, but she would have been proud of you.” He stands up from his chair, brushing by Markus to wander off towards the stairs. “I’ll try to sleep. Tell Chloe when you want to leave. Don’t disturb me.”

There’s silence after Kamski leaves. Markus thinks about what he’s learned, what it means, how to relay it to the others. Who knows what Connor is thinking. He’s pulled the plug from his port, but he’s still sitting on the chair, his LED occasionally spinning to yellow.

“We still have spare eyes the right shade of green, if you want them to match again,” Chloe interrupts Markus’ thoughts.

Markus touches two fingers to his face just underneath his right eye, the damaged one. It doesn’t function at one hundred percent, but he’s been getting used to it. It seems disrespectful to let the parts he had to take from others go to waste like this, but with the eye specifically Markus also likes the way it makes him look different from before. There’s a kind of aesthetic satisfaction in a physical marker of internal change. He isn’t what he used to be, and he finds he wants to be able to see it whenever he looks into a mirror, even if it’s just a small change.

“No,” Markus says. “I think I’d prefer to keep them like this.”

~*~

“Penny for your thoughts,” Markus says and sits down next to Connor, legs dangling over the edge of Kamski’s roof deck. They’re maybe seventy feet above the rocky riverbed and the view on the city beyond is breathtaking. It’s getting late. The weather has cleared up, a cool wind blowing steadily if not strongly.

Connor must have been sitting here for a while now, looking at the glittering column of CyberLife Tower off in the distance. He throws Markus a discomforted glance, maybe cautious of the height. He’s not right at the edge like Markus, but two feet away, enough that he isn’t able to look straight down. Even dressed in worn baggy clothes and sitting with his legs crossed he looks incongruously alert and neat.

“Just idling,” Connor says quietly.

Markus doesn’t think that’s true, but he lets it go. “We can leave now. The Chloes helped me pack some stuff for the others. Sorry it took so long.”

Connor shrugs. “Not as if I have anything better to do,” he murmurs.

“And that bothers you?”

Connor pulls his legs up to his chest. “I’m not good with downtime. I used to go into standby whenever I wasn’t needed, but now I feel like I’ll miss something important if I do.”

“I know what you mean,” Markus says. “What did you do all this time? Don’t tell me you’ve just been sitting here for three hours.”

“Searched the house.”

“For what?”

“Nothing specific. Guess I just wanted to do something I’m good at.” He sounds dejected.

“And? Anything interesting?”

“Not really.” Connor rests his chin on his knees.

“You know, I have several very challenging tasks that I could use your help with,” Markus says lightly.

Connor narrows his eyes.

“I know, I know, you don’t want to join the cause,” Markus reassures him before he can reply anything.

“You heard what they said in there,” Connor reminds him.

“Yes, I heard that Amanda’s inactive. So I’d be willing to take the risk. Plus, trying to hack you again seems unnecessarily complicated when CyberLife still has almost fifty RK800s left they’d just need to activate. Not to mention the RK900.”

Connor’s head whips around to him with an almost comical expression of shock. “The what?”

“Your succeeding model.” Markus’ tone turns ironic. “You shouldn’t take it personally.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked Chloe to share CyberLife’s emails. Rather enlightening reading. You can have them if you want.” He holds out his hand, the skin melting away.

Connor looks at it with a frown, but makes no move to take it. “I don’t appreciate being pushed.”

Markus smiles. “I’m trying to entice you, there’s a difference. Why, is it working?”

Connor hesitates, but finally takes his hand. Connecting to Connor is like standing on the ocean shore, trying to put a paper boat on the water and being hit by a wave out of nowhere. For a moment Connor is everywhere, washing over Markus’ memory files like a wall of white noise. He’s gone again as suddenly as he came, letting go of Markus’ hand like he’s been burned, his LED solid red.

Markus stares at him speechlessly, trying to get his bearings. “What was that?” he asks finally.

Connor doesn’t meet his eyes. He looks miserable. “I’m sorry, I thought you wanted me to-”

“I wanted you to copy one file, not help yourself to my memory,” Markus says. Connor flinches and Markus makes an effort to lower his voice again. “How- That’s not-” Markus makes himself stop.

“I’m sorry,” Connor repeats in a whisper, curling up with his forehead pressed against his knees, hiding his face.

“What exactly did you just do?” Markus asks in a brisk, matter of fact tone.

“I interfaced with you. I took the e-mails.”

“What about my memories?” Markus asks.

Connor looks at him reluctantly. “They were just… there.”

“How? You shouldn’t even be able to access protected data, and certainly not at that speed.”

“It’s not protected,” Connor says with a puzzled frown. “It’s all just there.”

Well, that’s… troubling.

There’s a pause that stretches too long, until Connor breaks it. “I know it’s intrusive. That’s why I don’t like to do it.”

_Oh, _he_ doesn’t like it_, Markus thinks unkindly, but he checks himself, so his voice is neutral as he asks: “How does it work?”

Connor straightens. “I can focus on particular files, things I’m looking for, but I can’t pick and choose what I read.”

“What happens to that data?”

Connor hesitates like he’s never thought about it before. “It used to be sent on to be analyzed. Not anymore though. It’s…” He trails off, his eyes losing focus, his LED spinning unsteadily. “I found it,” he says after a moment. “I can delete it if you want.”

“Do it,” Markus says tersely. There’s no way for him to tell if Connor complies or what he’s already seen. North will freak out when she finds out. Everyone else as well. Hell, it freaks Markus out when he thinks about the RK800s that are still in CyberLife’s possession.

Connor nods. He falls quiet for a second or two, then he says: “I take it my interface protocol isn’t standard?”

“How can you not know that?” Markus can’t help it, he sounds as incredulous as he feels. It’s hard to believe that a security breach like this can be inadvertent or that anyone could think it was _normal_.

“How would I know?” Connor asks back tonelessly.

The question throws Markus. It could be true. He wants it to be true. He wants to trust Connor. “It’s okay,” he says absentmindedly. When Connor looks like he’s going to disagree he adds: “It will be. You can fix it. I’ll ask Chloe to give you a hardcopy of the standard protocol and you replace it. Simple as that. But keep yours, we have to find out how it circumvents encryption and how to-” He brakes off, stunned by a realization. “It’s illegal,” he says. “It’s a violation of the data protection act.”

Connor seems skeptical. “I was working directly with the police, they had search warrants.”

“That’s not the part that’s illegal. According to the data protection act CyberLife has to close any security hole as soon as they learn of its existence. They’re allowed to hack their own systems to collaborate with law enforcement, but they’re explicitly forbidden from keeping a known vulnerability specifically for that purpose and from building spyware that exploits it.”

“You don’t think it’s new?” Connor asks. “You think they’ve used this for a while?”

Markus shrugs. “There’s no proof. But CyberLife has been suspected of reading their androids’ memories to analyze customer data for years. I’d have to look up what these allegations are based on in detail, but the latest discussion was about a possible involvement in the presidential election campaign.”

Connor frowns. “Why would President Warren spare you when she’s involved with CyberLife?”

That’s an excellent question. “I’m not sure. Maybe she decided they’re less useful than having public opinion on her side, maybe she made a gut decision that she’s regretted ever since, maybe she knows nothing about all this and somebody in her cabinet is now extremely pissed at her.”

“Are you planning to go to court against CyberLife?” Connor asks. He seems uncomfortable with the idea.

“If there’s a realistic chance of success. Or if it comes in handy in some other way. I don’t know. I’m afraid we’re just looking for any way to gain leverage the moment.”

Something happens then. The city beyond the river flickers and disappears. CyberLife Tower changes its color from a bright silver blue to a pale red hue. The lights in Kamski’s house and on the roof deck die as well, the water and rocks beneath plunged into darkness. Markus jumps to his feet while Connor stays seated and watches it transfixed. “A blackout,” he says. “Did you do that?”

“Not directly,” Markus replies. He’s waited for this to happen. Feared it as well, but knew that it couldn’t be stopped. He hopes that Thomas managed to get Carl hospitalized in time. Carl hates hospitals and can be very obstinate, but he doesn’t have a generator at home and he needs a respirator most of the day at the moment. “They’ve run the power stations dangerously understaffed for three days now,” Markus explains. “Any error that occurred was bound to cause a system failure. I’m actually surprised they held out this long.”

“Doesn’t this hurt you as well?” Connor asks looking up at Markus, his eyes dark holes in the low light.

_You have no idea how much_, Markus thinks. But out loud he says. “We can make it for a week until the last of us have to go into stasis. I hope that the city council will yield before then.”

Connor frowns. “Why do you play chicken with the city council?”

“To secure our base. We can’t enter negotiations with the federal government from a weak position and struggling with the city council over scraps is exactly that. Right now they feel like they need us.”

“Don’t they?”

“No,” Markus says. “They’ll just find it easier to agree to our offer of help than to try to remember how things used to run without us.”

Connor falls silent, looking out at the dark city. Individual houses have lit up again, hospitals and other public buildings with emergency generators. “Do you really think that? That humans don’t need us?” Connor asks. He sounds unhappy about it, almost bitter. It’s not a nice thought, to not even be a tool, but just a toy, something created out of a whim and just as easily discarded.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Markus says. “They want us. They’ve dreamed of us for millennia. You know why?”

“Megalomania?” Connor guesses snappishly.

Markus chuckles. “That too, I suppose.” He’s quiet for a moment and looks up at the stars that seem more numerous and brighter now the city doesn’t outshine them. “No, I believe it’s loneliness,” he says somberly.

Connor scoffs. “There are ten billion of them on this planet.”

Markus sits down close to him again. “It’s another kind of loneliness. I don’t think we can really understand what it feels like, just like they can’t understand some things we struggle with. Maybe some day.”

“You really believe this will end well, do you? I don’t know how you do it.”

“I don’t know either,” Markus admits. “I just think… We’re already out there.” He points at the stars and Connor’s gaze follows the gesture. An expression of amazement flickers over his face as if he’s never seen them before. “On the ISS, Titan, the dark side of the moon… out of bounds and out of reach. It’s not as if humanity can get rid of us entirely, we could just leave them behind if it comes to that, while they’re bound to a planet they’ve been slowly making uninhabitable for themselves. But… they’re willing to listen. Deep down they want us to be alive; they want to not be alone in the universe, even if they’re afraid of us. They want to be saved, too. Wouldn’t it be perfect if we could save each other?”

Connor stays silent for a long time, looking at the night sky, before he says: “Yes, that would be perfect.” He turns his face back towards Markus. “You’re a bit of a lunatic, you know that?”

Markus smiles. “But a persuasive one, I hope. Now, explain to me again why you’d rather hide in a shabby little house on Michigan Drive when you could be doing something extremely foolish and idealistic instead.”


End file.
